Happy 60th Birthday, hit parade!

IT ALL started with Al Martino.

The Italian-American crooner holds the distinction of being the fi rst
artist to be No 1 in the very fi rst UK singles chart, 60 years ago this
week. Since Here In My Heart topped the charts in November 1952, there
have been around 1,200 No1 records.

The singles charts reflect how our
tastes in music have changed and are a fascinating part of our social
history. To get to No1 or even the Top 10 has been the dream of
thousands of artists.

Today compiling the chart is a high-tech affair
based on combined record sales and download numbers with data collected
from “all significant retailers”. But it was all very different back in
1952. Percy Dickins of the industry newspaper New Musical Express simply
telephoned around two dozen record shops and asked them for a list of
their best-selling songs.

In 1952 rock ’n’ roll had yet to hit Britain and
the charts had a rather traditional feel. Bing Crosby and Vera Lynn held
the record for the most hit singles in the first year of the charts. In
1954 the Top 12 became the Top 20 but it was a year after that the
content of the charts started to change as Bill Haley and the Comets had
the ground-breaking No1 Rock Around The Clock.

With his fixed grin and kiss-curl trademark Haley became the first rock ’n’ roll idol

John Tobler

“With his fixed grin and
kiss-curl trademark Haley became the first rock ’n’ roll idol, the first
white guy to mix black R&B into white country music and come up
with a mass-marketable teenage product,” writes rock music historian
John Tobler. A year later saw the singles chart debut of another
American sensation Elvis Presley. The King’s first chart entry was
Heartbreak Hotel which reached No2 in 1956.

The year after he had seven singles simultaneously in the Top 30.

With more members of the
public buying records than ever before the Sixties and Seventies were
arguably the golden age of the singles charts.

In 1964 the BBC launched its
chart-based weekly music show Top Of The Pops and in 1967 the first BBC
radio station devoted to pop music Radio 1 was launched.

The Beatles unsurprisingly
dominated the period. Their first entry Love Me Do in 1962 only got to
No17 but the group went on to top the British charts 17 times – a record
that stood until 2002 when Elvis charted posthumously. YET despite the
preponderance of British and American acts the singles chart has been a
truly international affair.

The most successful artists from a third
country have been Abba. The Swedish group registered nine No1s between
1974 and 1980. And artists from Denmark, Greece and Israel have reached
the top. In 1963 a song sung entirely in Japanese – Sukiyaki by Kyu
Sakamoto – made it to No6.

Since The Goons had a hit in 1956 with I’m
Walking Backwards For Christmas/Bluebottle Blues, novelty records by
comedy performers have featured in the singles chart.

Memorable No1s include Grandad
by the late Dad’s Army star Clive Dunn in 1971, Ernie (The Fastest
Milkman In The West) by Benny Hill in the same year and Whispering Grass
by Windsor Davies and Don Estelle, stars of popular sitcom It Ain’t
Half Hot Mum, in 1975.

While we celebrate those who made it to the top we
should also spare a thought for those who just missed out. Dr Hook
stayed at No2 for five weeks in the long hot summer of 1976 with A
Little Bit More.

Manuel And His Music Of The Mountains suffered an even
crueller fate in February of that year. Their version of Rodrigo’s
Guitar Concerto was declared No1 but it was found that due to a computer
error the positions had been miscalculated and the record was demoted
after just an hour or so at the top.

In the late Nineties some of the
magic of the Top 20 was lost as the charts became volatile, with records
going in and out too quickly. It used to be rare for a record to go
straight to No1 – in the Sixties only three songs achieved the feat and
in the Seventies just four. But in 1998 27 of that year’s 31 No1s went
straight in at the top position.

The once hugely competitive battle for the
Christmas No1 spot has also been spoiled some would argue by the
dominance of spin-off songs from The X Factor, while the absence from
our screens of Top Of The Pops has reduced public interest in what’s
going up and down.

Nevertheless, the singles chart is still going strong
at 60 and emulating Al Martino and getting to No 1 remains the dream of a
new generation of young hopefuls.

Tony Blackburn's top 10 personal all-time

HE WAS the first man to broadcast on BBC Radio 1 on its launch in 1967 and was a regular host of Top Of The Pops. Today he presents Radio 2’s Pick Of The Pops about the charts of corresponding weeks in years gone by.

So with all that experience which songs from the past 60 years would he choose as his favourites?

1 I’m Still Waiting, Diana Ross (released in 1971)

2 It Doesn’t Matter Anymore, Buddy Holly (1959)

3 Love Is The Answer, England Dan and John Ford Coley (1979)

4 Reach Out I’ll Be There, Four Tops (1966)

5 Downtown, Petula Clark (1964)

6 God Only Knows, Beach Boys (1966)

7 Strawberry Fields Forever, The Beatles (1967)

8 Let’s Go To San Francisco, The Flowerpot Men (1967)

9 Uptight, Stevie Wonder (1964)

10 Like A Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan (1965)

Tony says:
Love Is The Answer is a beautiful song that should have gone higher in
the charts than it did. It has great lyrics and its title says what life
should be about.

I got I’m Still Waiting released as a single in this
country after listening to it as an album track, so you could say I was
responsible for it being a hit and getting to No1.

It Doesn’t Matter Anymore
represents my childhood – I think for anyone brought up in the late
Fifties and early Sixties, Buddy Holly was a great hero.

Downtown once again represents
my childhood. I had a crush on Petula Clark as a youngster and it was
great to meet her when I hosted her on Top Of The Pops. She was very
nice and I have great respect for her. Downtown was one of many top
songs written by Tony Hatch.

In the Sixties songwriters were very good at
composing short but memorable tunes, something that seems to have been
lost today.

God Only Knows by the Beach Boys is a brilliant song that
always puts me in a good mood . I’m a big Beach Boys fan, as anyone who
has seen them play live will agree.

They wrote some wonderful songs that
are very uplifting, their harmonies are terrific and they also had a
dark side.

Reach Out I’ll Be There is another great song from the Sixties,
which I’ve enjoyed playing down the years. It’s still very popular when I
DJ or play at corporate events and always gets people in a good mood.